Saturday, November 29, 2008

If we were angry a moment ago...

More words of Buddhist wisdom, this time courtesy of Ayya Khema, author and founder of Nuns Island:


November 29, 2008
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Rebirth

"...We need not think of rebirth only in a future life. We are in actual fact reborn every moment with new thoughts and feelings, and we bring with us the karma that we made in the past moments. If we were angry a moment ago, we are not going to feel good immediately. If we were loving a moment ago, we would be feeling fine now. Thus we live moment to moment with the results of our karma."

--Ayya Khema, "When the Iron Eagle Flies"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I like this quote. I am not sure I believe in rebirth into some future life. I am more along the lines that we live with karma in this whatever it is. Like I explained to my kid when he was much younger than he is now, happy thoughts lead to more happy thoughts, unhappy or mean thoughts lead to more unhappy or mean thoughts. Which do you want to have? The problem comes in when we are not even aware that we are letting the thought train run and are not the thought train itself. Ya know?

Jeanne Malmgren said...

The thought train ... good description. That's exactly what it is.